Model Schools in Korea: Classrooms on Steriods and Bred for Excellence

Daegu, South Korea. Kids chirp in unison after the teacher. Maybe they break into song as they break from their row and scurry along, moving their desks into their level groups. It reminds me of an elementary ROTC school.

They call them "model schools" and last month, I got to attend an open observation of one. What's a

Teaching Adults: Poetry & the English Language

A short game in Adult Introductions

In my Parent's English class, I made name cards for the subject of Personal Introductions.

The name cards with the faces and names of famous people who inspired me. Some cards were of famous celebrities which would be fun or funny for parents to introduce themselves as; others took on a more serious note which I hoped might strike an interest in multi-culturalism.

One of my favorite name cards was Maya Angelou.

Poetry can be an advanced text to teach from. Poets take much creative liberty in their use of words and interpretation isn't always easy, even for English speakers. At one point, I thought my teachers would be busting out their cellphone translators for this. Still, teaching stay-at-home moms and teachers who don't like their husbands, I thought introducing a subject about female strength, sexuality and passion would be good-- whether they understood the meaning or not.

Phenomenal Woman   by Maya Angelou Pretty women wonder where my secret lies. I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size But when I start to tell them, They think I'm telling lies. I say-- It's in the reach of my arms The span of my hips, The stride of my step, The curl of my lips.I'm a woman Phenomenally.Phenomenal woman, That's me. I walk into a room Just as cool as you please, And to a man, The fellows stand or Fall down on their knees. Then they swarm around me, A hive of honey bees. I say-- It's the fire in my eyes, And the flash of my teeth, The swing in my waist, And the joy in my feet.I'm a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That's me. Men themselves have wondered What they see in me. They try so much But they can't touch My inner mystery.

Photo courtesy of Rebecca Rebouche blogsite When I try to show them They say they still can't see. I say-- It's in the arch of my back, The sun of my smile, The ride of my breasts, The grace of my style.I'm a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That's me. Now you understand Just why my head's not bowed. I don't shout or jump about Or have to talk real loud. When you see me passing It ought to make you proud. I say-- It's in the click of my heels, The bend of my hair, the palm of my hand, The need of my care,'Cause I'm a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That's me.

Activity (tried out on my Teacher's English Class) :

- Students take turns reading through the text, while I check their pronunciation
("Phenomenal" is the hardest word for them to pronounce... they often say, Pen-omenal). The poem has a lyrical rhythm to it and the words aren't complex, so this makes it an easy text to read.

- Next:
I read the poem in a more dramatic sense and with my entire body, to give more expression and meaning to the language.

- I give a summary of the poem and then go through and offer translations.

-  I have them try expressing their feeling through the words that I've translated.

- There are many cultural differences between Koreans and Westerners in regards to being a woman and femininity. My adult students are all mothers. So I encourage a discussion.

I am considering using this text for one more lesson as a way to practice pronunciation, but we'll see.

Just Show Me Pictures: An Expat's Frustrations in Learning a New Language & Culture

So when I first arrived in Korea, I started an expat series on my GRRRLTRAVELER blogsite called, Just Show Me Pictures, dealing with the frustrations a newly arrived expat has with learning a new language in a foreign culture.

I actually derived the series from this ppt presentation I did for my Teacher & Adult English classes. There's no sound-- it's really a powerpoint presentation which I walk through and
elaborate on with personal stories, such as the fact I washed my hair with Korean conditioner for 2 weeks thinking it was shampoo!~ This is a very short presentation but it's definitely one of my favorites.

Here's a pdf version download (roughly 40MB) of my ppt  in the case anyone wants to use it.

Teaching English to Teachers (Lesson Plan: Teaching Classroom English)...sorta

A video sample of my Powerpoint presentation (I did this a while back)

I love learning languages and nothing is more painful to me than watching a language teacher, who has no facial expression, speaks with flat delivery and no vocal intonation. Painful.

 Learning a language is learning about cultural expressions, intonation, vocal pitch, gestures, facial

Lessons from a Superhero Factory (teaching Actions)

I WANT TO BE A SUPERHERO

SUPERHERO POWERPOINT LESSONS (downloads):
Advanced Class
(video links may or may not work)
Basic Class

SUPERHERO LESSON PLANS & GAMES (downloads):

Lesson Plan

Superhero High Worksheets

Superhero Action Cards
- Advanced
-Basic

Graduation Badges for Superhero High

(when they complete this lesson I paste a badge on their book)

For more about the results of my lesson at my Summer Camps,
click here to go to my blog on GRRRL TRAVELER
(Part I)
(Part II)

ESL Summer Camp: From the Monster World

I had a chance to teach Summer at an amazing school. Now read what happens when I teachSummer Camp at my own (click on the title bar to be re-directed to my original article).

Lessons from the Monster Factory (teaching Feelings)

MY PET MONSTER LESSONS:

Advanced class.ppt
Basic class.ppt

For more about the results and pictures of this lesson plan go here

PET MONSTER GAMES:
A. Warmup Game-- DRAWING MONSTERS
I love that I thought up this game! It's brilliant at getting a point silently across and the kids are entertained by it. I write the name of an emotion on the white board and then draw a circle. I ask for a volunteer as to who can fill in the circle and draw the emotion. I pick easy emotions they know like Happy, Sad, Angry.

Ss1 comes up, I give them a red pen and they draw a simple face. Say it's the emotion, Happy and they draw a Smiley. Then I ask for another volunteer, Ss2, to ADD to that drawing; make it MORE HAPPY. I give them a black or blue pen to do it in.  Main Rule: they can only ADD to the drawing, not subtract or erase.  I keep asking for students to come up and add  to the picture until it transforms into something intense.  When I'm done with the drawing, I point out the difference of what they started with in the RED pen to what the emotion transformed into.. with the BLUE or BLACK pen.  Usually it's a drastic difference.  I show them how at first the emotion was simple; now, it's a MONSTER! Then I'll perform the difference and really exaggerate it. Sad and Angry tend to draw the best results and the kids have fun. But it drives home the idea of how emotions can become monsters.

  An example of my 3rd grade class's board. Each single drawing is a compilation of at least 4-5 students' efforts.

B. Act or Draw Game:
-Emoticon Printouts.doc
- ACT DRAW.doc
Group game.  Ss send up a leader (everyone will get to have a turn). The game is similar to Charades. Ss play Ki-Bi-Bo and winner gets to pick from the bag. There are two bags that the Ss must pull from-- 1) holds ACT or DRAW pieces of paper; 2) holds Emoticons/Emotions. 

Winning Ss will pick one Emotion and one ACTION. The leaders must look at the emotion and either ACT it out or DRAW it on a piece of paper for their teams. When their team guesses, they must send up another Ss to write the name of the emotion on the whiteboard. The first correct answer (I count spelling too) wins the point.

C. Scavenger Hunt Game:Download Tools-
-Scavenger Hunt Worksheet
- Scavenger Hunt Emoticon Printout
Teams get a scavenger hunt worksheet listing clues to places where they must collect the answer. In each location, I placed an Emoticon marker (i.e. X marks the spot) to signal they have found the area and the Emoticon feeling is the one they must write in the blank. When they fill in the entire worksheet and get it correct, I give them a prize.

D. Make your own My Pet Monster Mini-Book

My accordian book sample.

My first class teaching Teaching Teacher's English ( Introductions, Gossip & Glamour)

Name - ___________________________

Level - Beginner / Intermediate

Topics for Learning English:

1.      Holidays

2.      Classroom English Terms and Phrases

3.      Birthdays

4.      Celebrities  

5.      Tipping

6.      Children and Family  

7.      Dating  

8.      Telling Time

9.      Days of the week

10.  Months in a year

11.  Western Slang

12.  Free time and Hobbies   

13.  Gender Roles

14.  Travel

15.  Music

16.  The Weather

17.  Movies

18.  Transportation

19.  Restaurants and Eating Out

20.  Money and Shopping

21.  Giving / Asking - Directions in English

22.  Introducing yourself

ANY OTHER SUGGESTIONS?

 The above checklist worksheet is something I passed out to my teachers at the beginning of class. It's a list of subjects they might want to learn and I have my teachers mark or rate what their preference for topics.

First Class teaching Teacher's English

I really didn't know what to prepare or what to expect.

I spoke to other EPIKers as to how they were handling their Teaching Teacher's English class. EPIKer Anika had some great tips as she was excited about teaching her teachers and
had several lessons worked out. Her checklist above is what I thought was brilliant.

Extracting answers from my Koreans teachers

A class needs a curriculum for structure and when you can't teach from a textbook, this can be hard--

I will be the one creating the textbook, the Powerpoint presentations and possibly worksheets. Getting teachers' interest is a way to form a curriculum.

But if you ask adults for their ideas or interests, it's like asking to be frustrated by the response of silence. Getting my teachers to speak about their personal goals or expectations for the class wasn't easy. Many of them were either, too shy to express what they want; and  some, I suspect didn't quite know what they wanted out of the class either.

Asking for ideas from your students? No.

Bad idea.

It was a god-send that I printed out the above questionnaire in advance as a safety solution. I had the students fill them out in class and voila! I have a direction to shape my class curriculum.

Class #1: Activity :  Give students an article and generate a  class discussion from it

Didn't quite have faith in this activity but it was recommended by another EPIKER. I hear some EPIKers will pass out articles for students to read and generate class discussions from. I find this a bit droll but it was my first class and I didn't have a safe springboard.

I passed out an article from BreakingNewsEnglish.com about Carla Bruni and Nicolas Sarkozy (my document) rumors & did a discussion about gossip and rumors.What they thought of gossip & who they would want to hear gossip about , etc...

I didn't get to do my ppt Intro, so...

Class 2: Introductions

The Non-traditional approach to Introductions:

Introduce yourself via Cosmo Questionnaires

In the U.S. many of us women have at least done one in our lifetime. This is a more extended answer of a questionnaire (no spicy content or choices to choose from. I have students choose from the list of questions to Ask/Answer  Are you a Cosmo Girl/Guy?  to other students when they do this. They do it for 3 minutes and rotate partners. 

- I got this from some teacher's idea site (I wish I could remember so that I could give them credit; I think he was an EPIKer). The questionnaire was named something else, but seeing as I was starting my class on the subject of Gossip & Glamour, this was a nice continuation.

Finally, time for my introduction

My extended version of my Powerpoint Introduction to the Teachers, spoke a bit about my challenges in learning the Korean language.

My PPT Introduction of my stats, my former job, my birthdate year + the following inserts which I made:

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Introducing Yourself to Your Korean Students through Powerpoint

For my first week of elementary school EFL, I wasn't expected to teach.

Still, I thought I'd do an Introduction in Powerpoint anyways. Afterall, my kids will want to know about me anyways, and because I have pictures/video to share of where I'm from, I'd like to get them engaged from the start.

The first lessons for the Korean elementary school year is always about "Making Introductions" anyways.So my co-teachers loved the idea and the fact it roughly took 10 minutes of classroom time.

Enclosed is the Powerpoint presentation.

Hopefully you can open it but if you can't, please email me and I'll send it to you. Good luck to all you teachers.

Fighting!

Classroom Observations:

1. Most of my students know who Obama is! (gasp-- I don't even know who the South Korean president is...)
2. The video of Elementary school children in Hawaii doing cultural activities actually kept them awake  (*Tip: kids like seeing other kids in videos- if you can actually shoot the videos at their eye level, it's even better.)
3. They are curious about you and your personal life, like family.
4. Local pop celebrities: for them as a wake-up surprise if they were drifting off. When they saw the performer, Bi/Rain, some of them shouted out his name and got excited.
5. Travel photos- *Tip: photos of kids, yourself, and animals are interesting to them.


Download Powerpoint ("Hello, what is your name3.ppt")